In episode 4, Prisoner, we open with chaos, as Amber somehow manages to carry Tibor out of the pharmacy with alarms going off in the background. She acts quickly, avoiding detection, stealing the pharmacist’s car and speeding away from the scene.
Olly wakes to discover that Mia is gone. In a panic he steps outside, and is amazed to find Carla singing to the baby inside the greenhouse. The situation feels weird, but Carla finally hands Mia back to him.
Olly tries to leave straight away and begins to gather his things, but realises his keys are gone. Carla won’t let him go until Tibor arrives. And when the car arrives she immediately alters her behaviour and tells Olly to hide upstairs while she goes out with a gun. Amber and Tibor are waiting for her outside.
Amber and Olly are briefly reunited, but everything takes a turn for the worse when Carla finds out that Tibor is in hyperglycemic shock. Amber has given him too much insulin by mistake. Carla scrambles to stabilize him and she pulls him back to consciousness.
Olly arrives with bolt cutters and frees Amber and Tibor from their bonds. Amber also reunites with Mia but the tension is still thick. Carla is very suspicious and tells them they need to go right now. Amber, however, is not sure that escape is the safest choice.
They’d had a tense night, Olly standing guard at the door while the others slept. Amber discussed things with him. She thinks they will still be in danger even if they escape. Olly is fed up, and wants nothing more to do with Tibor and the Pegasus situation, but Amber is determined to see it through and take Tibor to court.
The situation becomes dangerous when Olly calls O’Neil in secret. This allows the NCU to determine their approximate location. They can’t quite find the location, but they get close enough that Declan can move in.
Back at the house, major revelation changes everything. Carla is not her real identity. Her name was Etienne. We also learn that Tibor had killed Sebastian in the past. Etienne defends him, saying that Sebastian was abusive and had it coming.
Speaking of Amber’s mother makes the air even colder and the tensions even greater. The NCU arrives before the situation can get any worse. Olly thinks they’re safe, but the party prepares for a fight when armed troops encircle the site.
During the raid Nina appears among the attackers and Tibor recognises her on the monitors. There is a violent gun battle. In a desperate act, Etienne sacrifices herself to protect Tibor, but is soon shot down by Nina.
In the chaos, Mia’s screams put everyone on edge. Unstable and overwhelmed, Tibor decides to leave the group and run off into the woods alone. That leaves Nina free to hunt down the rest of the survivors.
Nina follows Olly and hears Mia crying, gets closer to their spot. At the same time Amber fights back with a nail gun and manages to take down one of the armed officers.
Nearby, Tibor returns to his dying mother in the greenhouse. She begged him not to leave her in this moment of tragedy. In a fit of emotion, Tibor shoots her and puts her out of her misery. He finds Amber outside, in shock.
Elsewhere, Nina catches up with Olly and tries to shoot him, but her gun is out of bullets. Olly hits her. They wrestle. She has no time to reload. But Nina prevails over all his attempts and takes Mia’s baby carrier.
She flees in a car, and soon Amber learns the heart-breaking truth: her daughter has been kidnapped.
Episode Recap
This episode continues the show’s pattern of high tension and constant escalation, but it also reveals some flaws in logic and character decision-making.
But Olly’s choice to get in touch with O’Neil himself puts the entire group at risk, even if his actions are partly understandable given his lack of knowledge about the corrupt situation. And yet it’s a maddeningly cavalier choice.
Amber’s behavior is just as erratic. She has moments of amazing physical strength and ability, like when she carries Tibor under duress, but other times she seems oddly inept at handling simpler situations. Some of her decisions also seem unnecessarily risky, particularly as she leaves critical situations unresolved and is moving around in exposed danger zones.
There are also handy plot devices to cut down the tension. Nina’s inability to maintain her superior position over Olly and other missed opportunities make the antagonists less threatening than they are meant to be.
But still the episode is a fun watch, despite these problems, because it is fast-paced and you never feel safe for a moment. Especially the kidnapping of Mia in the last few moments created a strong and emotionally charged path to the last two episodes.